New tech will boost competitiveness at global level

Sifelani Tsiko

Innovations Editor

Harnessing science and new technological innovations can enhance Zimbabwe’s competitiveness at local, regional and global levels, a senior Government official has said.

Mr Willard Manungo, deputy chief secretary for Policy Analysis, Coordination, Devolution and Development Planning in the Office of the President and Cabinet told a workshop to validate the draft Zimbabwe genome editing communication and advocacy strategy: “The harnessing of our science, our innovations should contribute to our quest to become an upper middle income economy by 2030.”

It was important to ensure that the Zimbabwe genome editing communication and advocacy strategy was communicated effectively and accurately to all stakeholders and the public.

“As a country, we are striving to become an upper middle income economy through harnessing our science, technology and innovation capacity,” Manungo said.

“Agriculture is the backbone of our economy, therefore, it is crucial to ensure that the application of new technologies as well as the policies to regulate this application are in place to boost our agricultural production.”

Technology innovation is one of the key economic battlefronts and Zimbabwe has adopted genome editing as a key enabler to boost production.

The National Biotechnology Authority (NBA) and Scientific and Industrial Research and Development Centre (SIRDC) were holding a week-long workshop to validate the genome editing communication strategy. Zimbabwe drafted the Zimbabwe genome editing communication and advocacy strategy with support from the African Union Development Agency – New Partnership for Africa’s Development (AUDA- NEPAD).

Gene editing technology allows scientists to edit any gene they target, enabling them to find and change or replace genetic defects.

Gene-editing science and technology is in its early stage in Zimbabwe and most African countries and the potential of this technology is still to be harnessed.

Speaking at the same event, Florence Nazare, acting director of AUDA-NEPAD for knowledge management, said her organisation stood ready to support Zimbabwe’s efforts to adopt genome editing to increase agricultural production.

“The Government has endorsed genome editing and we stand ready to support the in country action plan for genome editing with a budget. It’s important to have an action plan endorsed by all stakeholders and supported by the government.”

Zephaniah Dhlamini, an academic and director of the National University of Science and Technology’s (NUST) Applied Genetics Testing Centre said it was important to communicate new technologies in a way that could be better understood by the public.

“The main driving factor for this communication strategy is that we have seen how misinformation caused problems in Zimbabwe and Africa,” he said.

“Most of the problems due to misinformation. Scientists did not communicate appropriately. We do not want that to happen with genome editing. We have learnt from our mistake. With good communication we expect to have increased public confidence from the adoption and implementation of this strategy.”

The country is taking steps to increase and scale up the use of biotechnology, in particular genome editing.

Zimbabwe is among other selected countries such as Burkina Faso, Ghana, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Mozambique, Kenya and Malawi that were chosen to pilot the application of genome editing research towards product development.

African countries are moving to harness modern biotechnology applications to drive industrialisation and inclusive growth that improves livelihoods on the continent.